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SAN FRANCISCO -- Attorney General Kamala D. Harris, the recipient of the George Moscone Ally Award by Christopher Street West, the organizers of LA Pride, will ride in the Pride parade this Sunday, June 10.

Attorney General Harris was honored for her “bold leadership on matters of paramount importance to the LGBT community,” including her refusal to defend in court Proposition 8, the initiative that ended marriage equality in the state.

Attorney General Harris has long been an advocate for the LGBT community. As San Francisco District Attorney, she convened a national conference of prosecutors to undermine the “gay or trans panic” defense. She also tailored the office’s programs to serve the LGBT community, setting up special programs to combat anti-LGBT hate crimes, as well as an LGBT Victim Advocacy Unit and an LGBT Sexual Assault Awareness Program. A long-time advocate of marriage equality, Harris has been performing marriages for LGBT couples since 2004.

“I am honored to advocate for California’s LGBT community and am honored to be presented with the George Moscone Ally Award,” said Attorney General Harris. “Our American democracy is founded on the principle of equality before the law, and any law that denies rights to one group of people because of who they are contradicts that core principle. George Moscone lived by this principle, and his legacy lives on.”

“These are hopeful times for the LGBT community, especially with recent rulings against Propostion 8 and the Defense of Marriage Act. Proposition 8 denies equality under the law to gay and lesbian couples. Each and every day since it was passed, same-sex couples have been denied their right to convene loved ones and friends to celebrate marriages sanctioned and protected by California law. Each one of those days, loved ones have been lost, moments have been missed, and justice has been denied. We must transform our hope for equality into action to achieve it.'”

LA’s annual pride parade began in 1970, one year after the Stonewall Rebellion which occurred on Christopher Street in New York City. Today, over 400,000 participants march annually in West Hollywood in support of the LGBT community. The Christopher Street West Association, a non-profit organization that advocates for the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered communities, organizes the annual Los Angeles LGBT Pride Parade.